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To Read All Those Web Privacy Policies, Just Take A Month Off Work

Internet surfers have long worried that they have insufficient control over their online privacy — despite the privacy policies many people agree to when they visit websites or use online services.

There are data to support the surfers' feelings: Online privacy policies are so cumbersome and onerous that it would take the average person about 250 working hours every year — about 30 full working days — to actually read the privacy policies of the websites they visit in a year, according to an analysis by researchers Aleecia M. McDonald and Lorrie Faith Cranor.